Need Advice on video/audio editing system ($800-2000).

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ash22

ash22

Distinguished
Dec 8, 2009
14
0
18,510
APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: April 2010
BUDGET RANGE: $800-2000

SYSTEM USAGE: Video/Audio/Photo editing, surfing the internet, every day use.
PARTS NOT REQUIRED: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS.
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: newegg.com, tigerdirect.com
PARTS PREFERENCES: I would like to use an Intel CPU & full tower case
OVERCLOCKING: No
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: No

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1200

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I would like a quiet PC (who doesn’t?),also an IEEE 1394 FireWire port would be nice.

No Blu-ray capabilities are recurred.

Primarily I use Adobe CS4 master collection, additionally sometimes Sony Acid & Vegas Pro or Samplitude Pro.

I’m shooting my programs with my camcorder (Canon VIXIA HD30), recording it strait on my laptop, than editing it and encoding it. I produce around 5-10hrs of mp3, mp4 and wmv per month.

Also I have some stuff laying around from my old build:

HITACHI Deskstar HD31000 1TB
Sound Blaster Creative X-fi Titanium (PCI)
Ultra LSP750 750-Watt Power Supply
NEC Black 16X E-IDE/ATAPI DVD Burner
 
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The idea of applications pipelining is all about keeping caches and system pipelines "primed" with the next data or instructions to be executed. Every time any storage device changes tasks, all that data, which had to be loaded into those pipelines (priming), must be flushed, and the new data or instructions have to re-fill those caches and buffers, before hits can be acheived.
If you give me the gear, I'll build it and benchmark against the very same SSDs, in a traditional setup. I can only guess my architechture would "win" .... I think it would do VERY well in any app that reads one dataset and renders it to another.

That way, system ops, application ops, source data, and output file(s) EACH would have a dedicated cache and system pipeline and the access (address) pointers would only need to increment, by one, in most cases.

Doing this same thing with Mechanical drives would GREATLY amplify the advantages.
BECAUSE ... the heads actually have to MOVE and LOAD (settle-out) for each re-task ... THAT is also why defrag can improve performance so dramatically ... keeps the heads on one track, sucking up contiguous data.

SSDs are fast enough (near zero latency) that the "pointer latency" is really a non-issue ... still a big deal with HDDs, tho.

= Al =
 
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You don't need to convince me, I'm a UNIX & Windows systems administrator. I do this sort of thing on a larger scale every day.

I just think that getting 1 32 GB drive, 2 64s, 1 128, and a 256 is clunky. SSDs are pretty much ridiculously fast, and most home/small office users aren't going to detect a difference between that setup and, say, 4x 128 GB RAIDed or carved up logically or whatever. Yes, you would probably receive some benefit, but it's unlikely to be noticeable to the typical user, and it's certainly not economical at this point.
 
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I stand corrected ... good to know. My source had been some comment on some forum or product review that simply stated .... "You can only install it once".

Fact is, every time I've crashed I have had to buy a new copy. Either I couldn't find the disk, or I couldn't figure out which copy went with each machine, or, as in the case of my latest notebook, The key-sticker came off the bottom of the system ... the heat just melted the stickum and it slid off in an oily, unreadable mess . . .

. . . what is my time and lost "productivity worth"? ... More than a 64GB SSD !

... But you did shoot down my best economic point ... Win7 "paying for the SSD" ... Don't you know when to suddup?!

... kidding! ... Please always correct me when I am in error ... "bad dope" ain't good for anyone.

= Alvin =
 
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Unless (perhaps?) you kick-off 12+hour render sessions, on a regular basis ... Actually, I'm just trying to shave as many hours off of those renders as I can ...

... I know one guy who (works for Austin game developer) has 4 rigs, networked, on a table in his office ... calls it his "render-farm" ... I believe Avid also provides modules for networked rendering. Lucas must do butt-loads of that.

= Al =
 
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... And ... While pondering all this, I envision that, one day in the fairly near future, EVERY application that you purchase will come on it's own USB4.0 quarter-length SSD key-drive and that drive will have it's own, dedicated (individual) read and write caches and pipelines ... SO ... You will have a bank of "physical applications ports" on the rear of your system and each app and utility will have it's own dedicated read and dedicated write "line" (and caches) and each app will have plenty of extra storage area for user's project management data and templates for layouts and operations, etc on that dedicated "super-flash-raid-key" ... copy protected ... never lost ... updatable/upgradable ... distributed and portable user data. Take it with you, custom environment and all.

= That will be cool ... I can hardly wait. Wish that was the standard, right now.=



 
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OK guys, you sold me on the idea of using at least 1 SSD drive in my rig.

Now, I need your advice on configuration of those drives.

OS & Essential Apps – Kingston V Series SSD 128GB

Data drive – (RAID 1) 2x SAMSUNG F1 1TB

Total: $550 (Which gets us $250 over the budget)

I figured, Win7 (20GB) + MS Office (2GB) + Adobe Master Collection CS4 (10GB) should be fine on the same SSD drive. Am I horribly wrong?
In the future I’m thinking of getting two more F1 drives, and putting all 4 drives in RAID 10. Also I will get two more SSD drives, as “render to” and “render from” drives.

What do you think guys?
 
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All of that stuff will be fine on the SSD. Ideally, you want to keep the drive at least 20% free, they tend to perform better with more free space available.

No idea about that specific SSD, though it does support TRIM, which is always a good sign.

And I like that you're going for the RAID class drives, though I don't know a lot about that model. If you're serious about it and your budget will stretch far enough, I'd consider getting at least a $50 RAID card, rather than relying on the motherboard to do RAID. Alternatively, you could get some similar, but less expensive drives (Seagate 7200.12s or wait for Spinpoint F3s to be back in stock on newegg) and fit a RAID card in a little more easily.
 
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TOTALLY AWESOME !!!

128GB is PLENTY of room ... I have 3 pro edit suites (with a bevy of partner apps) and half a dozen complete audio studio environments and classic table games and reams of free-ware apps ... my WinXP-Pro/SP3 & IE8 and google earth and chrome and all sorts of photo and rip and burn boxware and DJ crap and ... the list goes on and on ... all the user-project data files and templates too!

ALL of THAT and my 70GB (original) RAPTOR is just about 60% full... DUDE !!!

NO WORRIES !!!

You WILL want to pick up one of those $90 1TB external backup drives, sometime before the RAID blows up (you have about 34 months ... dont forget!)

BTW : THE KINGSTON DRIVES ARE RE-PACKAGED MAINSTREAM INTEL DRIVES !!!!

NO worries, there, either ! YAY !!

You are SO S I C K ! !

= that's a GOOD thing =

 
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OK ladies and gents, this is the moment you been waiting for…


Video editing workstation second draft:

Motherboard & CPU: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R & Intel Core i7-930 2.8GHz LGA 1366 $479.98
REM: G.SKILL PI Series 12GB (6 x 2GB) $359.99
Cooling: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro $29.98
System & Apps Drive: Kingston V Series SSD 128GB $249.00
Data & Backup Drives: 2x Samsung Spinpoint F3 3.5in 1TB (in RAID 1) $179.98
GPU: PNY VCQFX1800 $559.99
PSU: Ultra LSP750 750-Watt Power Supply $0
Sound Card: Sound Blaster Creative X-fi Titanium (PCI) $0
Optical Drive: NEC Black 16X E-IDE/ATAPI DVD Burner $0
Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 932 $159.98

Total system cost is about $1860


Now I’m starting to get exited. Now I really want one…

Any comments / suggestions?
 
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Just TWO more things (the second is optional ... the first is NOT !!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000069%204093%201319721986%201184512287%201184612286%201184912279%201185012277&Description=memory%20card%20reader&bop=And&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&ActiveSearchResult=False&CompareItemList=N82E16820300608%2CN82E16820816001%2CN82E16820342001%2CN82E16820132020%2CN82E16820339001

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000069%204093%201319721986%201184512287%201184612286%201184912279%201185012277&Description=memory%20card%20reader&bop=And&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&ActiveSearchResult=False&CompareItemList=N82E16820300608%2CN82E16820816001%2CN82E16820342001%2CN82E16820132020%2CN82E16820339001




= H Y D E E E - H O O O ! =

😱
 
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just run thru this ... better now than later !!!






*** OPERATING SYSTEM

*** MAIN APPS

*** SYSTEM-COMPUTE CORE

MOTHERBOARD
CPU
COOLER(S) & PASTE (Extreme OC see GAMING SUPPORT)
RAM

*** GRAPHICS SUBSYSTEM

WORKSTATION GPU CARDS
GAMERS GPU CARDS
MULTIMONITOR PROFESSIONAL APPS CARD
BASIC HOME OFFICE CARD
GPU CARD FOR TODDLER'S GAMES AND EDU-WARE
SLI BRIDGES AND CONNECTORS
SPECIAL COOLING
CABLES AND ADAPTERS

*** DISPLAY SUSBSYSTEM

MONITORS
HDTVs
PROJECTORS
SCREENS
MOUNTS
CABLES AND ADAPTERS
CLEANING AND ACCESSORIES

*** GAMING SUPPORT

ALL NOT LISTED ELSEWHERE

*** TELECONFERENCING

WEB-CAMS
MICROPHONES
HEADSETS
SOFTWARE
OTHER

*** STORAGE SUBSYSTEM

CARD READER
DVD BURNER
BLURAY BURNER
BOOT DRIVE
APPS DRIVE
CONTENT DRIVE
BACKUP DRIVE
MEDIA
ENCOSURES
CABLES & ADAPTERS
EXTERNAL RAID
SLOT BASED SSD
PLATES
TRAYS
MOBILE RACKS
FANS

*** SOUND SUBSYSTEM & STUDIO INTERFACE

SOUND CARD
CONTROL SURFACE
BREAKOUT BOX
HEADPHONES
MICROPHONES
HEADSETS
SPEAKERS

*** SYSTEM IFRASTRUCTURE

CASE
FANS
PLATES AND BRACKETS
CASE HARDWARE & ACCESSORIES
PSU
CABLES AND ADAPTERS

*** HUMAN iNTERFACE AND ERGONOMICS

KEYBOARD
POINTING DEVICE(S)
MOUSE
PADS CUSIONS AND RESTS
TRACK-BALL
AIR-MOUSE
TOUCH PAD
TOUCH SCREEN

*** PRINTING AND LABELLING

PRINTERS
LABELERS
LARGE FORMAT
PHOTO
PRINTABLE DISK

*** NETWORKING
*** PRESENTATION
*** SALES
*** POINT OF SALE
 
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Hmmm, you know there a two identical links? :sarcastic:
 
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wonder if there is anything TO this ....


*****************************************
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]

Does NOT function with I7 Processors
By l0de from NYC on 12/3/2009
Pros:Inexpensive

Cons😀ifficult To Install, Incompatible with core i7

Best Uses:Multimedia

Describe Yourself😛ower user

Primary use:Business
Bottom Line:No, I would not recommend this to a friend
Comments about Blackmagic Design Intensity Pro HDMI and Analog Editing Card - PCI Express:

This product will not work with core I7 processors

Attempting to install the software results in bluescreens and system-hanging on win7 64 bit. I have called blackmagic directly and they confirm that their product does not work with the i7 processor. They have no estimated resolution date.
 
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As far as I understand the problem is not with core I7 processors, but with X58 based motherboards (not all of them).

Another beauty I’m pondering about is: WinFast PxVC1100(CRI Dual-CS Coder). The card itself is available at NewEgg , but I’m having problems finding that CRI Dual-CS Coder plugin for Adobe CS 3/4.

In tests it frees up to 60% of CPU and gives similar performance to Matrox for fraction of the cost.
 
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Well, ... If one edits in premier-pro and owns CS4 (complete) then it might be a Godsend (or it might be one of those tools that I never quite figure out) ... I DO have a lot of DV-25 footage ... a ... lot And VHS ... SVHS ... Hi-8 ... VHS-C but all I was planning to do was to pipe the analog stuff through my DV-25 camera's S-video and RCA-Audio input (cable adapter) ports and "crash-capture" it through the DV-25 connection ... Or dub it to DV-25 first, and then import as any DV-25 tape ... I don't know what I'd give-up to recompression ...

... Anyway, whatever formats I import to a SONY VEGAS project can be output as H.264 .wmf files and can be output as HD (pretty sure it'll do the bars if you ask or inerpret mixed formats and crop accordingly ... Have not done that. Been working in Quicktime MPEG 720P and 1080/30P/60i with my HV-30 ... "2-pass CBR" and just leave the de-inerlace settings at default. Been getting fairly lossless HGV>>.wmf quality.

I think rendering to anything other than progressive frame computer media files is a waste, blue-ray included (tho I'll do some of that). Blue ray ain't all it is cracked up to be, in terms of quality ... I look at it as a clear step down from pure HDV>>HDMI ... Heard about CANON's new 27Mbit 4-2-2 MPEG2 codec? Curious.
Also sort of want to see the new RED RUBY (forget ... I think it's called ruby or crimson or something red).

Anyway ... that product link looks like a specific solution ... I am just not ready to spend $2K getting all wet with ADOBE, just yet. I might. I am going with VEGAS just because ... because of "politics" as much as anything. As a PROTEST against the assinign marketing stance of AVID/FCP/Premier (and "partners").

= Harumph ! =



= Alvin =
 
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me too ...

... I think some folks on VEGAS forum use it ... like it. Sounds like potential for much cleaner capture than running the analog SD through my DV camera inputs and onto the firewire out.

Right now, I have the Quadro 580 as my second video card (FX1800 as first).

= Al = yeah that magic card could be my mon out and scratch the 2nd PNY.

 
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